Feelings of Imperfection
by SamCyberCat
Summary: Edo prided himself in being perfect. However his feelings were not perfect… EdoxJuudai [AsterxJaden], one shot, drabble.


Author's Notes – This story is the result of talking to ButterflyHack about there hardly being any Edo x Juudai fanfics out there despite the pairing being quite popular. I'm not the best writer but I wanted to contribute to the pairing at least a little.

Having said that I'm not a fan of Edo and haven't put much thought into the way his character works. So I can't promise that this drabble will be entirely true to his personality.

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Perfection was just something that Edo Phoenix naturally achieved. He didn't have to try hard and somehow he was just good at everything he did. He even had the ego to go with it.

And why shouldn't he have the ego? If you're perfect there's no point in trying to hide that from people. You might as well flaunt it. Or at least that was the logic that he went by.

But recently something had been bothering him. Something less than perfect.

Edo had always presumed that if he came to take a partner it would be someone as brilliant as him. Or as close to being as brilliant as him as another person could get anyway. They had to be in his league and…

…And it was true that this person was in his league as far as duelling went. He had to admit that. But that was where it ended. After that Juudai Yuki was about as far away from perfect as they came.

So why did Edo keep thinking about him even though he knew this?

It was probably because him and Juudai had been forced to remain in contact through circumstances, he reasoned to himself. Their destinies had been connected for a time.

Edo still thought of destiny sometimes. That everything that happened came to be for a reason. Something that was out of his control. He knew that he shouldn't believe this now that Juudai had taught him otherwise but it still lingered in his mind. Something you've followed for so long is hard to shake off…

Did destiny say that he was to have feelings for Juudai? Somehow he doubted it. That was just part of his imperfection. His emotions. The one part of him that he could not will to be perfect.

At least emotions are easy to hide. He'd never let Juudai know how he felt about him. But then again neither did anyone else… As he thought about it a lot of people liked Juudai, but not a lot of them made this known to Juudai himself. But somehow Edo knew they liked Juudai despite that they'd not let any obvious hints slip. Did this mean that other people could have found that he, himself, liked Juudai?

The thought of it worried him a little. A rumour like that could ruin his reputation.

With this in mind he made tracks for the Red dorm. This was where Juudai's gaggle of admirers usually stayed and if he was going to interrogate someone then he would find them there.

Though luck, if that fabled belief held any more truth than destiny did, was not on his side today. The Red dorm was not deserted but the only one present there was Juudai himself.

"Hey," Juudai called cheerfully over from where he was sitting as Edo walked through the door. Edo had a feeling that Juudai would have given an identically cheerful response regardless of which friend had walked in.

He did not return the greeting and chose to sit on the other end of the same extended seat as Juudai was using.

This didn't bother Juudai too much. He was used to this kind of attitude from Edo. He did have quite a few stubborn friends and knew the best way to handle them was to take their attitude with a pinch of salt.

As he was thinking of something to break the silence Edo unusually spoke first, "Juudai, you're a guy with a lot of friends aren't you?"

"That's true," Juudai responded, "Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering, speaking as someone who doesn't have as much experience with friends as you do, how can you tell what they think of you?" he questioned, hoping he'd hidden his true reasons for the question well enough.

Looking up thoughtfully Juudai said, "You know I'm not really sure. When it comes to friends its best not to worry about that too much because then you'll be too distracted to just have fun with them."

"But you must notice at least that Manjoume isn't fond of you," Edo pursued; worried that Juudai would change the subject to friendship in general.

"He is," Juudai said with certainty, "He just doesn't tend to show it when he can avoid it. But when the situation calls for it I can always count on Manjoume to help me out. He's kind of like you in that respect."

Edo decided he would hold off feeling insulted at that comment for the moment.

"And what about Shou? Don't you think he likes you a bit too much?" he tried again. Everyone knew Shou had a crush on Juudai. If Juudai didn't notice Shou's attraction then he wouldn't notice anyone's.

"You can't like someone too much," Juudai assured, and Edo inwardly smirked about how wrong Juudai was on that point, "You know what you're problem is Edo?"

"My problem?" Edo was taken back. He was supposed to be the one judging Juudai, not the other way around. Plus he couldn't stop himself from being insulted that Juudai would even consider he had a problem.

"You spend too much time judging people," Juudai answered, "You're always hanging back and watching instead of taking part. You should just stop worrying about what people think of you and get involved a little more. There isn't anyone around here who means you any harm."

He should stop worrying?

Stop thinking about being seen as perfect by everyone?

A silent rage bubbled up inside of him. How dare Juudai. First he shattered his belief in destiny and now he was trying to tell him that perfection didn't matter either?

How would he know? He wasn't perfect! Not like Edo who was perfect…

…Because he was destined to be perfect. That was what he'd told himself before, and Saiou had reassured him it was true. But then Juudai undoubtedly proved there was no such thing as destiny. Since then Edo had just presumed he was perfect because that's the way things were.

But without destiny every choice that he could make was his own. Including the choice not to be perfect.

Edo's silent contemplation was starting to worry Juudai a little.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Edo nodded, half snapping back to reality and half still stuck in his mind. He looked at Juudai with an oddly preoccupied gaze that only helped to increase the worry a notch.

"You know just because I said you should come out of your shell a bit doesn't mean that –"

But Juudai was cut off.

Edo had swiftly taken hold of the side of his head and forced him into a kiss. Once he had him there he let loose all his feelings, all of his imperfection, into this kiss. He wanted Juudai to know exactly what 'getting involved a little more' would mean for Edo. What it would mean for Juudai. Because if he was going to pursue feelings for someone who wasn't perfect he was going to make sure he'd do so better then anyone else who wanted Juudai did.

Once they resurfaced from the kiss Edo felt a lot better. Juudai, however, looked in a state of total confusion.

"You just… why did you…?" he stammered.

"Because you told me I should stop watching from a distance and get involved more," Edo replied, "And I want to get involved with you."

Juudai nodded mutely. If Edo had realised that kissing him would make him shut up beforehand he would have done it long ago.

"So what now?" Juudai managed to come out with.

"What do you mean 'what now?'"

"Normally I just plough straight on from one event to another," Juudai answered, he was more aware of the way he acted then people realised, "But I don't know where to go from this. I didn't imagine I'd be in a situation like this at any point."

"Well, you can either tell me to get lost or go out with me," Edo said, sounding more casual then he felt.

"Telling you to get lost would be pretty mean…"

"Not as mean as pretending to like you when you don't," was the firm response.

Juudai paused to think about this before saying, "Its not that I don't like you. Its just that I haven't considered if I like you more then a friend."

"And now that you have?"

"I still don't know," Juudai replied honestly, "But you're the first person who's ever really shown me how they've felt. And this could be an opportunity that I only get once. If I walk away from it I might regret it later…" Seeing the blank expression from Edo he decided to confirm, "I want to give it a try. Its not like I'd be pretending to like you, its just that I don't know yet. If we try this out we'll both get to see how it works together."

Part of Edo's attraction towards Juudai was probably the admiration that he was willing to risk things like this. There was a chance that a relationship between them could go terribly wrong but he wanted to give it a try anyway. In the past Edo wouldn't have dreamed pursuing a relationship unless he knew it was destined to go well. But now…

Now he was willing to try a little harder. Putting his trust in Juudai had worked out beforehand so he would risk hoping it would work out again.

"I'd like that," Edo admitted. It was one of the few sentences he'd spoken in a long time that was truly genuine and didn't have any double meaning to it.

They both sat smiling at each other for some time. Edo thought they would have looked pretty stupid if anyone was around to watch them. But that was the whole point; there was no one to watch. No one to judge if he was perfect or not. Because when it came down to it…

The biggest judge of his perfection was himself.


End file.
